Saturday, September 13, 2008

The long-awaited Nine Billion Names album is finally here. The album Brian started recording as far back as the Eight Thousander sessions, and also the record he has always intended to be written especially for Second Sun. Musically it covers alot of guitar-heavy territories...an epic 70 minute record that cycles through somber drone-beds, backwoods acoustics, gigantic distorted slabs of doom and beautiful bent melodies looping forever. Occasionally through the haze you can make out organs, basslines and field recordings that echo the album's cozy home cover art. This is Brian's first full-length at SSR under his own name, and as such we'd like to consider it his first proper solo album here, with unified concepts of art, sound, memories, locations and numbers all planted firmly in place. It's a very sad record that sounds like it's trying to find its way home again, even though it already knows that place no longer exists. Perfect listening for the advent of Autumn.

It has just occurred to me that I haven't really posted about my last couple contributions to the 21MG Series at SSR! David and I are still extremely proud of this series and so here's the scoop on the last couple I did...

BRIAN GRAINGER / KERGUELEN PLATEAU21MG SERIES / PILL-J2Kerguelen Plateau, named for a continent-size landmass that remains completely underwater, embodies the perfect complement to David's Bathymetry piece. Melodic guitars weave in and out of a warm-water drone, and a bit of Roy Montgomery influence can be traced here. This piece is filled with bright blue and orange tones and accurately conveys the over-100-degree temperatures active in Brian's southern home this summer.(LINK)

BRIAN GRAINGER / PAINTED GREEN21MG SERIES / PILL-K2We present a new 21MG Series installment from Brian in the form of Painted Green. This guitar piece coincidentally goes very hand-in-hand with Nine Billion Names, melodically and texturally, even though they were recorded separately. A sort of an ode to Summer, waving goodbye to the glowing heat and the wet urban lawns that overtook the last 4 months, while welcoming a new season of vibrant colors, festive smells and cooler weather.(LINK)

MML037 / BRIAN GRAINGER / HUMIDITY3" CD-R SingleSomething to herald the end of the Summer and the beginning of Autumn. A very melodic ambient piece called "Humidity" that sits very much in the same vein as records like Of The Apple or Eight Thousander. Lots of deep buried tonalities under cloudy chords and a really textural field recording of some of the rain that Brian's city has gotten along with the recent hurricanes. Guitars and organ pedalbass, limited to 100 copies!(LINK)MML038 / VHOM / FAALOPIAN TILSCD-R AlbumThe very first hardcopy full-length Vhom album is finally here. Years in the making, Faalopian is not going to be something that appeals to everyone. Over an hour of 31 untitled tracks, all joined together in a seamless collage flow, and packaged in a jewel case with heavy duty corrugated cardboard for the inserts. Musically this record might resemble the sound of pouring boiling water in your ears, and I'm not quite sure why anyone (including me) would want to listen to that! For fans of things like BRTLMN/Wordsalad/Sagmo B, early Throbbing Gristle, Cylob's "Industrial Folk Songs" or Aphex Twin's "Classics". Heck, maybe even a little of Merzbow's "Pulse Demon" in there too. An absolute mindfuck of a record that is best enjoyed on a very loud stereo system. Putting the "concrete" back into musique concrete, 100 copies at a time.(LINK)

MMX006 / MILIEU / DUSTYBOX TRACKS3" CD-REPAlready up to numero seis in the Dustybox Tracks series! This time it's more like the very first EP that started the series, in that it's a small collection of remixes I did as Milieu for Asymmetrical Head, Track53 and Phasen. Melodies and beats are all over the place on these tracks, and they'd definitely appeal to anyone who is after the "classic Milieu sound". As usual with the series, it's only a fiver to get some catchy tunes that can fit in your pocket. (LINK)

**BACK IN STOCK**MML015 / BRIAN GRAINGER / AUTUMN SOIL FEEDBACK (SECOND EDITION)CD-R AlbumRepackaged in a more standard shop look with the original decals and stamping, and this time it's only $5! For anyone who missed out on this run of 50 before, this second edition is another run of 50 and will probably go pretty fast! For those of you who like your drones buried under walls of radio static, vinyl surface-noise, tape hiss, VLF recordings and 16-RPM orchestras, this is just for you.(LINK)

Saturday, September 6, 2008

I've recently had the pleasure of banding together with a bunch of friends who happen to be brilliant musicians and assembling a really awesome compilation of Summer-toned electronic music. Some of my very favorite people contributed to this disc, so check it out! From EED:

Summer is ending, and here at EED we've had a really eventful season. Everyone is eager for Autumn to come, ready for the leaves to change color and for the air to get a little cooler. So before that happens, we'd like to offer you a family photo album of sorts, to look back on what all of us did this Summer: The EED Summer Vacation compilation album of 2008!

Everyone from the EED-family-and-friends makes an appearance here...playful sunny melodies and beats from Mrs Jynx, Am-Boy, Milieu, EOD and Obfusc play alongside cleancut and grassy-green organic techno from Electricwest, Yimino, Ten And Tracer and Thisket, with homegrown suntanned sleepy pieces from David Tagg, Canyon Country, Biathalon and Coppice Halifax closing the showcase. Lots of accessible feel-good music to go around for everyone, the end of Summer has never been so action-packed! So grab a copy, curl up with your loved one or go for a walk and enjoy the season change, EED style!

CLICK TO ORDERAll orders will start shipping the week of September 8th.

The good folks behind Isoceles have concocted yet another warped visual experience, and graciously included some of my music in their efforts. Some info from the creators:

"EuKi is a rebellious hyper-active teenage hacker living in the near future, where both the most positive possibilities, and the most negative, have become manifest in two separate competing worlds; Ecotopia and Dystopia. She uses a self-programmed PDA and her intellectual robo-cat SupaKitty to hack the dimensions of the world around her and fight to restore balance to Earth’s teetering eco-systems."

Additionally, they have also informed me that their previous installment "Zombie Dasein" has been updated as well. This short-film also features music of mine fleshed together in an interesting way, so for those who have not seen it, check it out here.

This space has sadly gone without updating for a while now...mostly due to me being busier than one man should ever be, but I suppose that was what Summer was all about...nonetheless, here are all the new shop releases since the last update. A few things have also gone out of print since I last posted here, but I'll outline those items in a different post.

ABOUT THE FOLLOWING TWO ITEMS:Due to the manufacturer that supplies my 24-minute mini-CD-R's discontinuing them, many of the EPs in the Milieu Music catalog that utilize this format will no longer be available. I've "consolidated" 6 releases so far to accommodate this change, and they will now be available as full-length compilations on standard 5" CD-Rs at a lower price than what you'd pay for all of them separately. Anyone wishing to buy the original EPs should either contact me personally or check with my distributors, as they will probably have copies.

MML028 / MILIEU / PAPERBACKSCD-R CompilationCompiling songs from Three Space Songs, Dub Mmx and Muted Travels, this disc contains an hour of classic Milieu. Lots of bouncy beats covered in melodic loops, basslines, guitars and organs. The best kind of warped feelgood music for those of us who never want the Summer to end!(LINK)MML029 / COPPICE HALIFAX / SINGLESCD-R CompilationA second compilation disc, this time bringing together music from Nettles, Honeysoil and Cedarmill Dub. Musically this disc visits alot of terrain...from spacious ambient techno to dubby bass-and-breaks and crumbling drone-castles.(LINK)

MML030 / PARALLAX / THE SOFT MACHINESCD-RSitting quietly in a box since 2004, this Parallax album has been remastered and properly issued here for the first time ever. Packed to the brim with songs going as far back as 1999, The Soft Machines is a pleasant and simple look into what Brian was doing well before Milieu was ever a thought in his head. Lots of warm pads and pretty looped synth melodies over minimal drum accompaniment, as well as a couple (hopefully) forgivable moments that might date this music for some listeners. Cleaned up and affectionately packaged, this album is limited to 100 copies.(LINK)

MML031 / PARALLAX / REVOLVING CLOUDS3" CD-R EPIn locating and remastering The Soft Machines, a couple hours of unreleased Parallax material also surfaced. Of that, these six tracks caught Brian's ear somehow and so here they are, never before released and pressed up on a super-intimate run of 50 copies. A quaint little companion disc to The Soft Machines, complete with an alternate version of the TSM track "Palm To Fourhead Hex".(LINK)

MML032 / OPHIBRE & BRIAN GRAINGER / MAINE/SANDERCD-R Expanded ReissueHoused in a really cool jewel case with doublesided pattern-card inserts, this CD-R is a filled to-the-brim 80 minute disc of drones. Technically a reissue of the first split I did with Ophibre, however that release was limited to a 50 copy run of cassettes, this version is now on a much more accessible format along with an extra track from each of us not previously released. As an extra bonus way to involve you, the listener, we've included a baggie of 12 small scrap pieces of paper, all with the same designs that the CDs themselves have. Anyone who assembles these 12 pieces into a collage of some kind and mails it back to Milieu Music HQ will be rewarded with a bonus MP3-release of around 40 minutes of music not included on the disc! That's right - we want you to be creative. Each "collage" should size up to be about as big as a jewel-case CD insert, and I'd love to have some cool stuff to hang on my walls in the studio here. Limited to 100 copies!(LINK)

MML033 / BRIAN GRAINGER / POROUS VARIATIONS3xCD-R Triple-Album SetI know what a lot of you are thinking - THREE DISCS? You read correctly. This epic album contains FOUR HOURS of brand new music stretched across three discs in a unique jewel case with pattern-card inserts. No two copies look the same either. Since there's a lot more work and materials involved in making a triple-album, I am doing these in batches of 25. So any of you who get in on the "first edition", your copies will feature black and white artwork, keeping them distinct from later editions. Musically this record amounts to some of the thickest most rock-solid drone work I think I've ever done. Completely live and improvised on only guitar, organ and pedalbass, with some tracks clocking in at 46 and 76 minutes, surprisingly. I'm sure an album this big will keep you busy for a long time, as I know I certainly don't have four hours any day of the week to devote to music listening alone, but that's sort of the charm of this album I think. Not only is it something that you can go back to quite a bit, but it's also meant to be played at VERY high volumes, if at all possible. A lot of the low end and wobbly microtonal stuff happensvery deep in the mix, so at a high decibel level it's sure to be more entertaining. It was REALLY loud when I was recording it! Limited edition of 100.(LINK)

MML035 / COPPICE HALIFAX / CMXCD-R CompilationBorn out of necessity as well as accumulation and time passing, Cmx is a compilation of remixes done under the Coppice Halifax moniker that either are webrelease-only or are now out of print on whatever hardcopy issues they appeared on previously. A few remixes are also not yet released, making this compilation more exclusive and hopefully more complete for a longer period of time. Additionally, two versions of Coppice Halifax tracks appear here for the first time as well - the original more ambient version of "Dayglo Daze" and the original uncut version of "Canal". Altogether, this compilation flows more like an album than a collection of remixes, since the nature of my remixes usually allows for more unique material to surface over the original source sounds...making this a respectable Coppice Halifax release in its own right. This record comes lovingly packaged in a sleek jewel case with patterned/inkstamped cardstock inserts and blue discs, and limited to 100 copies.(LINK)

MML036 / COPPICE HALIFAX / TREADER VERSIONS3" CD-R EPA small companion EP to the Cmx release, these four versions of the track "Treader" predate the self-titled Coppice Halifax album. In a similar process as "Nettles", several sketches and varying angles on the same idea were worked on until the final album-piece became apparent. In these early versions, it is possible to hear the electric piano, overcompressed field recordings of wind and water, bell melodies and muffled organ drones that all comprised the final version of "Treader", separated and displayed in four tracks that might as well be new songs altogether. Edition of 100 copies on 3" CD-R with inkstamped cardstock insert.(LINK)

MMX004 / MILIEU / DUSTYBOX TRACKS3" CD-R EPThe fourth volume of the Dustybox Tracks EP series, this time featuring three outstanding remixes by Lithium Enchantment, Lunar Testing Lab and the ever-impressive David Tagg! Lithium Enchantment turns in a stellar electro presentation of "Elep" (Remodelled version, not SWFITS), and Lunar Testing Lab phones-home with a slower hip-hop version of "Greenscreen Boredoms" from Sophiesongs that will make you swear you're in a gravity-free environment. Closing the disc is David Tagg's version of "Stone Chapel" from Of The Apple, which wouldn't be out of place on SSR somewhere, as it's very similar to his Waist Deep Seas Of Milk CD.(LINK)

MMX005 / BRIAN GRAINGER / DUSTYBOX TRACKS3" CD-R EPNow for the fifth EP in the Dustybox Tracks series - this time two Brian Grainger mixes instead of Milieu. The first is an abrasive scatterbrained collage-assemblage of the "Porchsuite" material from my Porch split CD-R with Ophibre. Christopher Byler is the responsible party here, and he calls his work on the subject "domestic decompression". Secondly I weigh in with a 12+ minute drone version of one of Christopher's tracks, "Vengeance", which is very much in the vein of Autumn Soil Feedback or Porch and would definitely appeal to fans of either release!(LINK)

About Me

I make a lot of music, I help run a couple great record labels, I'm happily married, I'm better at school than I used to be, I'm half English and half Italian, I really love food, I'm named after my father's favorite Rolling Stones.